1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to graphics technologies, and more particularly, to a method and system for enabling multiple video graphics array (VGA) cards to process image data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
With the rising demand for realism and interactivity of computer graphics, having multiple video graphics array (VGA) cards in a computer system to process image data is becoming more and more common. Thus, how to coordinate these VGA cards to yield the optimal performance results is also becoming more and more important. In a conventional graphics system, a connecting device (otherwise referred to as a bridge) is used to electronically connect the VGA cards together.
To illustrate, FIG. 1 is a simplified block diagram of a conventional graphics system 100 having two VGA cards 102 and 104 that are connected through a connecting device 106. Here, each of the two VGA cards 102 and 104 includes a pair of two connection ports 108 and 112 and 114 and 116, respectively. The connecting device 106 can be configured to connect either one of the connection ports 108 and 112 of the VGA card 102 to either one of the connection ports 114 and 116 of the VGA card 104 (e.g., connecting 108 and 114, 112 and 114, 108 and 116, or 112 and 116). Generally, the driver software for the VGA cards 102 and 104 dictate a single unique connection between the two VGA cards that should work and allow the two VGA cards to operate at the same time. So, if the connection between the connection port 108 of the VGA card 102 and the connection port 114 of the VGA card 104 as shown in FIG. 1 is the only working connection, other possible connections between the two VGA cards do not serve any functions of enabling the two VGA cards to communicate with one another.
In other conventional two-VGA-card systems, the VGA card does not support multiple connection ports as discussed above and instead supports only one connection port. With such a single-connection-port VGA card, the two-VGA-card system cannot be expanded to include additional VGA cards to further enhance the processing capabilities of the multi-VGA-card system.
As the foregoing illustrates, what is needed in the art is an improved method and system for enabling multiple VGA cards to operate together and address at least the problems discussed above.